H.E.L.P. Animals, Inc. By Cheryl Crozier

In 2003 a group of us formed a non-profit group to help animals, not hands on, but by helping those who do hands on rescue and rehabilitation.

Our solution was to find ways to accumulate funds and pay for their needs, whether it was food, medical supplies or repairs.
Because of some experiences in the past with other groups our decision was to raise the monies needed and either purchase the food and supplies, donate medical supplies that are donated to us by suppliers or contract the people to do the repairs and pay for their services ourselves.

In doing it this way, we know who is doing the work, they are responsible to perform the work to our satisfaction and we can then cut the check for payment.

Our projects involve yard sales, car washes (when we can find volunteers that are younger and more fit than most of us), bake sales and low cost shot clinics.

When we started the shot clinics Officer Patrick Clarino was instrumental in getting us permission to do some of our clinics in your fair city of Lake Helen, which we do three or four a year with a very good turnout almost every time.

In conjunction with the Lake Helen Police Department we have been involved with food drives for the holidays, which included both human and animal food for those less fortunate and those who have fallen on hard times. We have also been active in the Christmas Toy Drive. We have accomplished this thru offering a $2.00 discount on the Rabies shots at our clinics, if the people donated non-perishable food items or donated gifts for the toy drive.

We don’t use our funds for anything other than animals, but the donations of these food items helped in meeting a need in the community.
In addition the directors and volunteers of H.E.L.P. Animals, Inc. all donated personal monies to purchase hams to add to the holiday food packages.

We have a very limited free spay/neuter program for those that qualify. Thanks to two local veterinary clinics donating their time and services, we can help lower the number of unwanted animals.

In 2005 one of our members saw a program on Animal Planet that showed animal oxygen resuscitation masks for animals suffering smoke inhalation from fires. We contacted the inventor, Mr. Richard McCulloch of McCulloch Medical in Auckland, New Zealand and we were given the opportunity to purchase the masks at distributor cost.

H.E.L.P. (Health, Educate, Love and Protect) Animals, Inc. had been looking for a civic project to give back to the communities that we all live in and we had found it. We raised the money to purchase the masks and then donated them to the first response trucks here in Volusia County.

We then thought of donating them to the Sheriff’s Office K-9 Officers, after all they work to protect all of us, so why not see that they have the appropriate equipment in case they are exposed to mace or smoke in their duties.

Word of mouth spread about the masks being available and the US Distributor agreed we could sell to other non profits, municipalities or individuals wishing to donate them for the protection of the pets or wildlife in their areas, thus the journey began………we now find ourselves in the position of having sent masks to every state in the US except South Dakota. Masks have also been sent to Canada (several provinces), Scotland, Britain, Ireland and Iraq (sent by a customer to protect the dogs working with our troops over there).

In 2007 we were made aware of a service dog in Deltona who was in need of medical attention to continue his work in serving his owner, who is a paraplegic. A local vet was cognizant of his injury, but no one here had seen this new procedure done, let alone do one.
The dog’s owner got on the computer and contacted the Veterinary College at the University of Florida. They knew of the procedure, but said it would be about six months before they would be able to do the operation. They gave him the name of Dr. Jimi Cook at the University of Missouri who had invented the procedure for his dog’s condition.

Eagle’s dad contacted Dr. Cook to see about getting the surgery done. As it turned out, Dr. Cook would fly here and perform the procedure on Eagle.

We contacted a number of the NASCAR drivers for donations and we decided to have a Bike Run to raise funds and use the donated items for a raffle. The Tony Stewart Foundation donated a check in the amount of $500.00.

The check from Tony Stewart covered the cost of the plane fare and we raised an additional $2200.00 at the bike run.

The University of Florida cut the estimated cost by more than half, as they were going to learn the procedure first hand, from the man who came up with it and it would be performed at their facility so some of them could stand in on the surgery.

The remaining funds paid for Eagle’s dad to stay overnight at a local motel to be nearby when the dog was operated on and we paid for Eagle’s therapy which lasted nearly 8 months. He is happily taking care of dad today.

Because of helping this service animal and realizing there is a need to help individuals with service animals financially, we have set up a Service Dog account at Riverside Bank.
We have since used some of our funds to help two other service dogs whose owners were unable to afford needed medical help.

We are always in need of funds to carry out our projects. You can refer to our website at www.helpanimalsinc.org to see what we are up to and if folks wish to donate funds, yard sale items, blankets or towels for our vets and non-perishable animal food.